Friday, February 16, 2007

Every once in a while the kids will accuse me of never letting them have any fun. And while I do lie awake at night dreaming up new and excruciating ways to torment them, you fine people are my witnesses that on occasion I can be just as cool as the best of them.

It started when I found in-line skates for $5 on clearance at Toys R Us a couple years ago and surprised the kids by bringing home a pair for everyone. But it was the middle of January (which explains the clearance thing) and there was no place for the kids to practice.

However, the middle level of our home has laminate flooring, so I suited the three oldest kids with pads, pushed the furniture back, rolled up the area rugs and moved anything breakable upstairs. Within a few hours they could zoom around the island like pros--the perfect indoor training track.

You might wonder how the floor withstood such a beating but that laminate flooring is tough. The skate wheels were clear, any marks they left were easily erased with a rag, and the surface withstood the pounding of six heavy skates clattering across it every ten seconds. We ought to be Pergo's new spokesfamily/test house--they should make a commercial about us.

OK, tell your kids the bloggers think you are the coolest mom ever. (Like they'll believe it!) Takes me back to my childhood when my family lived in a former hardware store for a while (long, weird story). My best friend and I would roller skate all over the part that used to be a hardware store. It was great, especially when it was cold out!

That's pretty spiffy. Thing is, they'll remember that their whole lives. Whenever we had crazy ideas and enacted them with our girls, those invariably are the things they remember all these years later.

They still bring up the time when they were little, and all of us in our pajamas, opened the fold out couch, ordered pizza, made popcorn and watched Peter Pan on VHS. It was a spur of the moment thing on a really cold Georgia evening, and one of many they still talk about.

My Younger Brother had the good fortune of being small when we lived in a house with hardwood floors and a loop through almost the entire house. On rainy days he would have his tricycle in there, zooming lap after lap after lap.

Pergo rules (as do you as a mom obviously). We had some in our old apartment. Once we dropped a 5-gallon can of paint on it--just had to wipe up the paint with a towel and we were good to go. No dents, no stains.